


Family First

by Telaryn



Series: The Tale of Eliot Spencer and Ellen Harvelle [10]
Category: Leverage, Supernatural
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Family Drama, Fever, Fights, Gen, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night after close, Eliot and Ellen are attacked at The Roadhouse by demons searching for Sam and Dean</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family First

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=angst_bingo)[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=angst_bingo)**angst_bingo** 's Round 3, for the prompt "heat".

**Title:** Family First  
 **Author:** [](http://telaryn.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**telaryn**](http://telaryn.dreamwidth.org/)  
 **Word Count:** 2546  
 **Fandom:** SPN/Leverage  
 **Characters:** Ellen/Eliot, Jo, Assorted Demons  & Barmaids  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Warnings:** None worth mentioning  
 **Disclaimer:** No ownership implied, no profit obtained.  
 **Summary:** One night after close, Eliot and Ellen are attacked at The Roadhouse by demons searching for Sam and Dean  
 **Author's Note:** Written for [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=angst_bingo)[**angst_bingo**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=angst_bingo)'s Round 3, for the prompt "heat".

  
Saturday nights at The Roadhouse, it was typically all hands on deck. That was the night that the usual hunter clientele mixed with tourists and locals into a volatile combination. If they were lucky they’d get through the night with a couple of fights and minimal damage to the furniture.

Ellen glanced up from counting the night’s receipts, checking on the progress Jo and the other girls were making with clean-up. Tonight hadn’t been the worst she’d ever seen, but it hadn’t been good. Two boys she’d never seen before had tried to put the moves on a female hunter. Liv had tried to shine them on, but they’d been too drunk to take no for an answer, and Sheriff Anderson had to call in his day shift before the last piece of glassware shattered to deal with the brawl.

Eliot came up behind her – a dishtowel slung over one shoulder. “Kitchen’s done,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “How’re things out here?”

Ellen smiled up at him, feeling some of the tension ease across her shoulders. “Slow,” she admitted, looking at the girls. “Soon as I finish here, I’m going to let them go home. Everybody’s worn out.”

“Next time call me before the glasses start hitting the wall, okay?” Eliot said, glaring at her. “I’ll grab a broom.” Ellen snorted softly, pushing at him as he walked over to Claire and took her broom. She couldn’t hear what he said, but the brunette sat down in a chair looking relieved.

“Go home Claire,” she called. The girl looked up, startled, but Ellen shook her head. “It’s all good – we’ll see you tomorrow night. Get some rest.” Glancing nervously at the others, Claire pushed to her feet. “The rest of you go on,” Ellen said, changing her mind. “Eliot and I’ll finish up. Thanks for sticking around and helping.”

Only Jo hesitated. “You want me to hang around?” she asked, coming to the table where Ellen was working. Ellen reached across and gave her daughter’s hand a squeeze. “Get out of here,” she said. “One of us deserves to get some sleep.”

Jo looked over her shoulder. “Make sure she gets to bed before dawn, okay?” Eliot gave her a casual salute, then went back to pushing his broom.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Ellen and her daughter exchanged quick good-bye kisses, then she went back to counting the money.

The two of them worked in easy silence until Ellen was satisfied with her figures. Sighing quietly, she began organizing the cash and credit receipts and bagging them up; she and Eliot would swing by the bank on their drive home to make the deposit. It had been a good night, despite the property damage – the changes Eliot had made to their sparse menu were starting show a positive shift to the bottom line.

“Finished?” Eliot was leaning on his broom, looking at her. Words failed her for a moment; Ellen swallowed hard. No one, not even her late husband, had affected her like Eliot did. It wasn’t just his looks either – it was how comfortably he fit into her world. On some level Ellen knew she’d been waiting for him her entire life, and it was going to hurt a whole lot more than it should when he finally left.

“Yeah,” she said finally, setting the lock on the deposit bag. “Not bad either – we might be able to replace the glassware we lost and still show a profit for the night.” Groaning, she leaned over the back of the chair she’d been sitting in, using the wood as a lever to help ease the knots in her muscles.

“Do that again,” Eliot said, propping his broom against a table and coming towards her. “That was nice.” His grin left no doubt as to the direction his thoughts were heading.

Laughing, Ellen smacked him in the chest. “Can we at least get out of here first?”

Eliot pulled her to her feet. “It’s not like it’s the first time,” he reminded her. Ellen pressed up into him, making an eager sound low in her throat as he kissed her slowly and thoroughly.

“Looks like fun,” a new voice said. Ellen and Eliot separated immediately, automatically moving far enough apart that they wouldn’t risk tangling each other up. “Can we play?”

 _Dammit!_ Ellen thought, exhaling sharply. She’d assumed the last one out would lock the front door again. A group of six people had come in; a mixture of men and women, all clearly looking for trouble. “We’re closed,” she said, relieved her voice was at least steady. “Come back tomorrow.”

A woman with waist-length black hair starting walking towards the bar. “Really?” she asked, sounding disappointed. “You’ve got nothing left?”

Ellen moved to intercept her. “We’re closed,” she repeated, slipping between the stranger and the bar at the last possible second. “You need to leave now.”

For one tense moment Ellen was convinced the woman was going to take a swing at her. Then she grinned, raising her hands and stepping back. “No worries, Miz Harvelle,” she said. Ellen’s chest tightened with a quick spasm of fear – she didn’t recognize the woman.

 _It doesn’t mean anything,_ she told herself. It was late, she was tired – and one of the hazards of her line of work was that more people were likely to know her by sight than she could ever manage in return. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Eliot moving in the opposite direction, drawing the attention of three of the group away from her.

“We just need some information,” the black-haired woman said. “Tell us what we need to know, and we’ll leave you two to your…fun.” Her smile had an edge that turned Ellen’s stomach.

“That sounds an awful lot like a threat,” she said, stiffening. “I really don’t take well to people coming into my place and threatening me.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “Threat? Miz Harvelle, this isn’t a threat.” There was a long pause, then Ellen saw her eyes flip demon-black. “This,” the woman continued, “is a threat.”

Ellen was moving even before her conscious mind caught up with the reality of the threat. “Demons!” she yelled, alerting Eliot as to the true nature of their visitors. Using a bar stool as a jumping off point, Ellen slid up on the bar and flipped behind it a fraction of a second before the woman she was facing off with would have grabbed her. The move bought her a few seconds to back up, but Black-Hair leapt onto the surface of the bar – her coat billowing out dramatically.

“Hunters,” the woman spat. “Always doing things the hard way.” Ellen scrambled backwards, determined to put as much distance between herself and the threat. Black-Hair was joined on top of the bar by a pale young man with close-cropped white blond hair. Together, the two demons leapt to the floor and advanced on Ellen.

 _Oh not good…_  
*********************  
Four of the strangers had stayed focused on him – Eliot had been intending to take them on physically until he heard Ellen’s shouted warning. “Can we talk about this, guys?” he asked, spreading his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Seriously – there’s no need for anyone to get hurt.”

The demon on his right smirked. “Sure, meat. Tell us where we can find the Winchesters, and nobody has to get hurt at all.”

Eliot swore under his breath. Demons meant they couldn’t call for civilian help, and Winchesters meant that they were going to have to fight their way clear. Family came before everything in Ellen’s world – no matter what this crew might have in mind, she would die before giving up the boys’ location. “You boys have made a bad mistake,” he said, continuing to try and draw them away from Ellen. “I’m telling you, leave now and we can forget this ever happened.”

They attacked him all at once. Eliot lashed out with fists and feet, using everything in reach as a potential weapon. Chairs, napkin holders and more of the sorely abused glassware struck the demons, keeping them at bay for several minutes.

Then Ellen screamed. Eliot was only distracted for a moment, but the four demons rushed him – using superior numbers and strength to bear him to the floor and pin him in place. Eliot struggled as hard as he could, but his arms and legs were pulled to full extension, robbing him of any leverage to fight his way free.

The demon who had spoken stood over Eliot, grinning evilly. “Looks like Vera’s turning the heat up on your friend.” Before Eliot could say anything, the demon pulled his foot back and kicked him full force in the side. Eliot cried out – pain whiting his vision as he felt two of his ribs break under the blow.  
*************************  
Ellen’s blood felt like it was boiling in her veins. The blond demon had her pinned; pain kept Ellen rigid in his grip, while his partner kept a hand over Ellen’s heart. “Tell us where Sam and Dean are, Miz Harvelle, and I’ll stop. We’re not here to play.”

The blond licked the side of Ellen’s neck. “We do enjoy our work, though.”

Her mind was racing. She had no doubt this group would do whatever they could to get the information they were after, which meant it wasn’t just her health and safety at risk. _You can’t give up the boys though._

Whatever Black-Hair was doing to her felt like the worst fever Ellen had ever endured. Her skin was dry and tight, and it was getting hard to focus. _So hot…so much heat…_ “Talk to us, Miz Harvelle,” the woman said, her voice suddenly gentle. “You don’t want to know what happens to a human brain at these temperatures for too long.”

The world was starting to soften. Ellen’s muscles began to relax – her head fell back against the blond demon’s chest when it became too heavy to hold upright. “We’re losing her,” she heard one of them say.

Unbidden, words rose to Ellen’s lips. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica, potestas, omnis incursion, infernalis adversarii, omnis legio…”

Pain exploded in her head, sharp and bright, tearing a scream from her throat. As blackness streaked with red clouded her vision, Ellen heard someone yell, “Bring her man over here! Let him watch!”  
******************  
Eliot had retreated to the place in his head where pain couldn’t follow. Every blow that landed, every bone that cracked or broke, felt like it was happening to somebody else. He didn’t worry about how hurt he was – knowing how much damage he’d already taken wasn’t going to help him or Ellen. Instead he waited, every instinct alert for an exploitable opening, something he could use to regain the advantage.

When the demons shifted, preparing to lift him to his feet, he found it. Moving on raw instinct and desperation, he used his body weight and balance to pull free of his captors. Rolling backwards, he came up on his feet and ran for a hiding place Ash had shown him some weeks earlier. With the demons at his heels, Eliot hit the low cabinet at a run. Using his foot, he broke the lock with a single kick and wrenched open the doors.

Inside the cabinet was a stash of weapons – Eliot grabbed the largest gun and swung it up to cover his pursuers.

Human instinct brought the four of them to a stop. “You’re kidding, right?” asked the leader. “You’re just going to hurt the meat suits – bullets won’t stop us.”

Breathing heavily, Eliot thumbed off the safety and squeezed the trigger. “Not loaded with bullets,” he said, as a hard spray of holy water struck the quartet.  
******************  
The fourth time she tried to recite the Rituale Romanum, the demon closed her hand around Ellen’s throat and squeezed. “Fucking humans,” she growled. “I set your brain on fire, turn your insides to sludge, and you still don’t know when to give up.”

Ellen felt a thick pain spread through her neck as her attacker leaned in. She tried to suck in air, but the demon’s grip was too tight. “We’ll get what we need from your man-creature,” she said. “I am done playing with you.”

It was too much. Ellen grasped weakly for the last threads of consciousness, and felt them slip through her mental fingers. She never saw Eliot open up on her assailants with Ash’s semi-automatic water-Uzi, never saw the pair throw back their heads and vomit the demons riding them into the night.

And she never flinched when Eliot vaulted the bar and pulled her into his arms.  
*******************  
She was limp and feverish in his arms; Eliot probed the side of her neck with two fingers, trying to ignore the bruising on her skin as he frantically searched for a pulse. “Dammit, Ellen!” _Don’t you leave me._

Adrenaline finally overwhelmed his system when he finally found what he was looking for – the beat of her carotid faint, but steady. “Thank God,” he breathed. “Oh thank God.” Bowing his head over her body, he let tears fall for several minutes without hesitation or shame.

When the worst of his shakes had passed, Eliot fished his cell phone out of the pocket of his jeans. Common sense said for him to call 911, but with six bodies on the ground and no easy explanation… He hit speed dial and put the phone to his ear.

“Eliot?” Jo’s voice was thick with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

Eliot filled her in as briefly as he could. “We’re both hurt bad Jo,” he said finally – the pain of his collective injuries finally starting to make itself known. He braced himself with his back against the bar, shifting Ellen to a more comfortable position in his arms. “We need help.”

After Jo reassured him that she would take care of everything, Eliot hung up on her and let the phone drop weakly from his hand. Breathing was starting to hurt a lot – his best estimate was two cracked ribs, and one broken outright. “Ellen,” he murmured, pushing her sweat-soaked hair back off her forehead. “Help’s coming, Ellen – hang on…” He should have fought harder, should have done more to make sure she wasn’t hurt.

“Stop.”

Eliot shivered, nearly overcome again as Ellen weakly slid her hand over his. Her eyes met his – filled with pain, but direct and determined as ever. “I can hear you thinking, Cowboy. Stop.”

He was tempted to argue with her. It had been a close call, and they were both likely looking at hospital time. He was still shaking in after-reaction, and part of him desperately needed her to hear him confess everything he would have done differently, given the chance, and he needed her to grant him absolution for his mistakes.

 _And what would you do if she tried the same thing on you?_ Awareness that she was probably feeling the same overly emotional misgivings he was kept him silent. “We’re still breathing,” he said, looking into her eyes again and giving her the most reassuring grin he could manage. “That’s all that matters, right?”

Exhaling softly, Ellen nodded and squeezed his hand. “Amen.”


End file.
